Higher education is getting more media attention lately, especially online. As many as half a dozen major news organizations have expanded their education coverage in the last year, providing their audiences with additional, varied sources for education news, at the national level at least.
Among the outlets beefing up education reporting are Politico, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, and NPR.
Journalists and educators cite a variety of reasons for the momentum: revenue opportunities, willing sponsors, audience interest. Many of the biggest stories in the country’s postrecession atmosphere, including income inequality, gainful employment, and consumer debt, are bound up with education, they say.
“The recent recession shocked a lot of families into realizing that a college education is going to be essential to their kids’ getting and keeping jobs,” says Kenneth Terrell, project director at the Education Writers Association. “That fact seems to be raising demand for more information and news about higher ed. And, of course, college is a big-money investment, for both students and the communities that invest in universities. So if journalism is all about ‘following the money,’ then covering colleges is probably a good place to start looking.”
It’s hard to quantify the recent growth in resources dedicated to education beats. The Education Writers Association does not keep data on hiring trends, but Mr. Terrell says the group has seen an increase in the number of members covering higher education.
Liz Willen, editor of The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization that produces in-depth education stories, says she has noted expanded coverage at some national news outlets.
“We are glad to see the field growing because it really matters, and there was a dearth of coverage for many years,” Ms. Willen says. Whether the coverage is sustained or is a “temporary moment” remains to be seen, she says.
At least some people doubt that the apparent uptick in national-level education reporting has anything to do with news organizations’ commitment to the beat. Nicholas Lemann, a former dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, says it is more about carving a new path in the digital news landscape.
“It is not about education per se, it is about the verticalization of Internet journalism,” Mr. Lemann says, referring to the creation of dedicated space on digital news platforms for specific subjects. “People who are publishing digitally are hoping that by publishing high-value, specific content aimed at specific audiences, they can find their business model.”
‘A Really Hot Space’
Peter Lauria, the business editor at BuzzFeed, says a newly created position on his now-five-member reporting team will be dedicated to covering the “business of education.” It was inspired in part by his own experience covering major media corporations, some of which are now investing in education projects. As an example, he points to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and its nearly two-year-old education division, Amplify Education, which creates curricular and learning tools.
The debut of an education “channel” on The Atlantic’s website, in September 2013, was born out of the magazine’s long history of education coverage, says the new section’s editor, Eleanor Barkhorn. Education articles published by The Atlantic were generating widespread interest among readers even before the channel went live, she says.
Ms. Barkhorn declines to share online-traffic numbers for the magazine’s new education coverage, but says the reception has been “fantastic,” especially for what she calls “deeply researched and thoughtful pieces.”
NPR announced in December that it would expand its education coverage starting this spring. The multiplatform reporting work is being funded with a portion of a $17-million grant package from sponsors including the Wallace Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“We have, in recent years, gotten a lot better at building crossfunctional teams that plug into a multitude of outlets—on air, social media, blogs, etc.,” says Matt Thompson, NPR’s director of vertical initiatives. “Education is a subject where we have had ambitions for quite a while, and those have dovetailed with an opportunity from funders.”
Steve Drummond, the editor who will oversee the expanded coverage at NPR, says his team will focus on putting the faces of students, parents, and teachers on education stories.
“We do bring to education coverage some of the public-accountability role of journalists covering City Hall or the Pentagon,” Mr. Drummond says. “It is a huge budget line item in every state in the country, and part of our job will be to look where the money is going.”
Perhaps no organization has taken a bigger swing at education than Politico. In September it formally introduced its subscription-based Politico Pro education news service. The news outlet declined to share subscriber numbers or the cost of a subscription, which is reported to be several thousand dollars a year.
The decision to expand into education-policy news was driven by research conducted by Politico’s sales team, says Martin Kady, managing editor of policy.
“They saw that there was a market opening there,” Mr. Kady says. “We have always had great education coverage from The Chronicle of Higher Education, from Ed Week, from Inside Higher Ed. But we still believe there is an opportunity to do something a little different, and do quick, real-time education-policy news.”
The education team includes one editor and four reporting positions.
“People are super-passionate about education policy, whether it is your suburban soccer dad who is getting fired up about Common Core or high-level professionals, whether they are lobbyists or agency people or people in the teachers’ union or at an association,” Mr. Kady says. “We realized this is a really hot space, and we went out and we hired the best team we could.”
Still, even as education gets more attention from national media outlets, it has suffered from dwindling local coverage, one result of the beating metropolitan newspapers starting taking in the 2000s, say journalists and educators.
“I’m guessing Politico Pro education isn’t going to spend a lot of time covering the Boston school board. It is going to be covering more national-level issues,” Mr. Lemann says. “You will get more national coverage and less local metro coverage, which has been the trend throughout journalism.”
